Terps Earn NCAA Public Recognition Award

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Maryland football team has been named a recipient of the NCAA Public Recognition Award for its high achievement in the 2015-16 academic year.

The football program earned a multiyear score of .984 and a single-year APR score of .978. The multiyear score was the program’s best since the inception of the APR in 2003. The football program has made significant strides since 2009-10, when its multiyear score was .922 and the single-year score was .905.

The award is bestowed on teams with an NCAA Division I Academic Progress Rate in the top-10 percent of all squads in their respective sports during the pertaining academic year.

The newly released multiyear APR scores are comprised of data submitted for 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. The APR index was developed by the NCAA to provide a "real time" snapshot on a semester-by-semester basis in order to measure the eligibility and retention of student-athletes in all Division I institutions. The APR is part of a larger package of initiatives, the NCAA Academic Performance Program, which was mandated by the NCAA Board of Directors to improve the academic performance of athletic teams.

In calculating the APR, all student-athletes receiving athletics financial aid are considered "counters" and each semester receive one point for retention/graduation and one point for meeting NCAA and University of Maryland eligibility standards for competition. The maximum number of APR points a student-athlete can earn in an academic year is four (2 in the fall semester and 2 in the spring semester). A team's APR is the total number of eligibility/retention points earned divided by the maximum number of points possible. This APR number is then multiplied by 1000. (For example, a team which receives 94 percent of all possible points would have a team APR of 940.)